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Cited by 91Wildlife Ecology and ConservationPrimate Behavior and EcologyAnimal Behavior and Reproduction

All-male groups in asian elephants: a novel, adaptive social strategy in increasingly anthropogenic landscapes of Southern India

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Srinivasaiah, Nishant, Kumar, Vinod, Vaidyanathan, Srinivas, Sukumar, Raman, Sinha, Anindya·2019·Scientific Reports
DOI 10.1038/s41598-019-45130-1PMC PMC6609637
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Abstract

Male Asian elephants are known to adopt a high-risk high-gain foraging strategy by venturing into agricultural areas and feeding on nutritious crops in order to improve their reproductive fitness. We hypothesised that the high risks to survival posed by increasingly urbanising and often unpredictable production landscapes may necessitate the emergence of behavioural strategies that allow male elephants to persist in such landscapes. Using 1445 photographic records of 248 uniquely identified male Asian elephants over a 23-month period, we show that male Asian elephants display striking emergent behaviour, particularly the formation of stable, long-term all-male groups, typically in non-forested or human-modified and highly fragmented areas. They remained solitary or associated in mixed-sex groups, however, within forested habitats. These novel, large all-male associations, may constitute a unique life history strategy for male elephants in the high-risk but resource-rich production landscapes of southern India. This may be especially true for the adolescent males, which seemed to effectively improve their body condition by increasingly exploiting anthropogenic resources when in all-male groups. This observation further supports our hypothesis that such emergent behaviours are likely to constitute an adaptive strategy for male Asian elephants that may be forced to increasingly confront anthropogenically intrusive environments.

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  • Among Asian elephants in southern India, male elephants spent 43% of their time in mixed-sex groups, 34% alone, and 23% in all-male groups ranging from 2 to 12 individuals.

    “Among Asian elephants, a study conducted in southern India concluded that male elephants spent 43% of their time in mixed-sex groups, 34% alone, and 23% in all-male groups ranging from 2 to 12 individuals [16].”

    From Socializing a group of male Asian elephants in a semi-captive facility in Lao PDR (2025) · cites this paper as [16]

    The Results report that males occurred in mixed-sex groups in 43.36% of records, alone in 33.57%, and in all-male groups in 23.08%; all-male groups ranged from 2 to 12 individuals. These are proportions of sightings, not measurements of the time males spent in each social unit. (LLM, conf=0.88)

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Research works printed but not linked: 6

  1. [33]Stamps, J. A. Habitat selection by dispersers: Integrating proximate and ultimate approaches. In: Clobert, J., Danchin, E., Dhondt, A. A. & Nichols, J. D. (Eds), Dispersal (pp 230–242). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press (2001).
  2. [37]Ims, R. A. & Hjermann, D. O. Condition-dependent dispersal. In: Clobert, J., Danchin, E., Dhondt, A. A. & Nichols, J. D. (Eds), Dispersal (pp 203–216). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press (2001).
  3. [39]Srinivasaiah, N. M., Vaidyanathan, S. & Sinha, A. Elephas flexibilis: Behavioural plasticity in Asian elephants in a human-dominated landscape in southern India. In: Kumar, A. & Vasudev, D. (Eds), Ecological and Anthropological Studies in India: The Science of Conserving Wildlife. New Delhi, India: Springer India. In press.
  4. [48]Bridges, A. S. & Noss, A. J. Behaviour and Activity Patterns. In O’Connell, A. F., Nichols, J. D. & Karanth, K. U. (Eds), Camera Traps in Animal Ecology: Methods and Analyses (pp 57–69). New York, NY: Springer New York (2011).
  5. [53]Sukumar, R. Ecology of the Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) and its Interaction with Man in South India. Doctoral thesis, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (1985).
  6. [70]McDonald, J. H. Handbook of Biological Statistics (3rd ed.). Baltimore, Maryland, USA: Sparky House Publishing (2014).

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Authors
Srinivasaiah, N., Kumar, V., Vaidyanathan, S., Sukumar, R., & Sinha, A.
Affiliations
  • National Institute of Advanced Studies (IN)
  • Indian Institute of Science Bangalore (IN)
  • Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata (IN)
Corresponding author
Srinivasaiah, Nishant
ORCID
Venue
Scientific Reports
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2019-07-04
Volume
9
Issue
1
Pages
8678-8678
ISSN
2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1038/s41598-019-45130-1
PMC
PMC6609637
OpenAlex
W2954680559
Cited by
91
References
60
Citations by year
2026: 8 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 5
FWCI
5.39
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • NOT FOUND REPOSITORY (Indian Institute of Science Bangalore) (acceptedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • Rufford Foundation
  • Indian Institute of Science
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
Keywords
Asian elephant, all-male groups, emergent behavior, anthropogenic landscapes, crop raiding, habitat fragmentation, life history strategies, body condition, adolescent boys, South India
MeSH terms
Animals, Behavior, Animal, Conservation of Natural Resources, Elephants, Female, India, Male, Sex Factors, Ecosystem, Body Size

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